In the Shadow of Satellites (17 page)

“Speaking of mugs, I forgot to bring over yours, and the tea-towel and pillow-case,” I say. “Shall I go and get them?”

“Yeah, I keep forgetting too. Its okay, I’ll grab them next time I’m over. Ana will be thinking I don’t want them.”

“She won’t be back till Friday, so she’ll never know.”

It feels like we’re in cahoots, like we’re keeping secrets. I suppose we are. I know there are things I don’t want her to know, like what happened at the rock yesterday.

“So, what exactly is your arrangement with her?” I ask, because I can’t help myself.

I really want to know. I’m not quite sure who to trust, and for some reason I can’t put my finger on, I want to trust Luke. I just don’t know if I can.

“What do you mean?”

He’s got his back to me, stabbing potatoes and wrapping them in foil.

“I mean, what are you supposed to report back to her about? Are you going to tell her about what happened yesterday?”

He turns to me, and we face each other across the grass. It feels like there’s a lot more distance between us than just a couple of metres. I hold my mug of wine with both hands, hanging on to the idea that this fledgling friendship of ours means more to him than any kind of deal he has with her.

“We don’t have an arrangement,” he says evenly. “And I’m not going to tell her anything. She asked me to let her know if you were in any danger. As far as I can tell, you’re not. Am I wrong?”

I shake my head.

“I didn’t think so.”

He doesn’t turn back to his work, and I feel like I’ve disappointed him. I can tell from the way he’s looking at me that I’ve hurt his feelings.

“I’m sorry,” I say carefully, because I am, but I also had to ask. “I didn’t mean to sound like I was accusing you.”

“You don’t have to apologise. And you can trust me. Like I said yesterday, I’m not going to go running to Ana or anyone else without telling you first. I thought you understood that.”

Now I really feel like shit.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t… you can trust me too. I promise.”

He nods, but I’m not sure he’s convinced. Maybe he’s just being careful. I’m more than a little unhinged. Maybe he thinks I’ll blurt out his secrets to Ana and then forget all about it. The thought lodges in my brain, spinning around, making me feel sick. That could happen. Maybe he’s told me other things that I can’t remember? How am I supposed to make new friends when these holes keep appearing? My old fear resurfaces, a grim reaper hovering in the background, waiting to cut me down. What if my old memories start disappearing, like my new ones? Who will I be now if I can’t remember who I was then?

“Hey – you okay?”

I can’t deal with this now. I can’t deal with him. I can’t even deal with myself.

I drop my mug of wine in my frantic dash past him and towards the cottage. I can’t do this. It’s too risky. I can hear him calling me but I don’t stop. I’m too far gone.

***

“Damn it, Sian – wait!”

His deep voice follows me as I stumble up the stairs and into the cottage, heading for my sanctuary. I need to surround myself with the memories while I still have them. I throw open the wardrobe and crawl in, pulling it closed behind me as I struggle to take a decent breath. The world is spinning so fast, I can’t breathe properly. I need everything to slow down, but it won’t. I pull my knees up close to me, hugging them tight.

I can’t smell James, I can’t feel him, I can’t hear him. Where is he? Why isn’t he here?

Help me! Please!

“Sian?”

My heart, racing just moments ago, shudders to a stop.

“Come out of there. Please? Just talk to me.”

I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. I can’t go out there. I’m not ready to face the real world yet. It hurts too much.

“If you’re not coming out, I’m coming in.”

It takes a second for me to digest his words, then slowly, the wardrobe door opens. I want to be angry, because it’d be easier than giving in to the fear, but the look on his face stops me. In the absence of anger, it’s not fear but shame that fills the vacuum.

Luke doesn’t say anything, he just climbs in beside me and pulls the door shut after him. What’s he doing? No one has ever done this before. What’s he trying to prove? The wardrobe is barely big enough for the both of us, especially considering he’s so much bigger than I am. I curl myself into an even tighter ball.

In the darkness that he’s just invaded the spinning seems to slow, then stop. The chaos in my head quietens down until all I can hear is our breathing and the beating of my heart. The confusion of only moments ago morphs into something that feels a lot like relief. Something in the universe has shifted.

“What are you doing?” I ask, wiping my eyes in the dark.

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

There’s no judgment, no amusement, just concern. I don’t answer him, because how can I?

“I’m just trying to understand,” he says.

There is hysterical laughter in my head. Good luck with that. Then the laughter dies away and it’s just the two of us again, sitting in the silence. It swirls around us, but it’s strangely comforting, like a confessional.

“I can’t sleep in a bed,” Luke says from out of the darkness.

Our arms are touching and I can feel the heat of his body seeping into mine.

“I’ve tried, but I can’t. I always wake up on the floor. I think that’s why I prefer camping to sleeping inside. It suits me better.”

I sniff, wondering why he’s telling me this.

We sit there for a long time, not speaking. The tears stop. My mind is still. The fears come back.

“I’m scared I’ll forget all the important stuff,” I whisper, because apparently we’re sharing. “These holes in my memory – what if I forget about James, or Kieran?”

I feel him sigh but he doesn’t make a sound. I feel like he’s waiting.

“I write everything down,” I whisper, staring into the darkness in front of me. “I have notebooks full of memories just in case the real ones get swallowed up in the black hole inside my head.”

He shifts beside me, and I feel his hand on my leg. He follows it until he finds my arm, then my hand, and he pulls it away from my leg, holding onto it gently. He’s warm, when I feel ice cold, and his warmth spreads through me.

“I don’t know how you feel,” he says, his voice almost a whisper. “No one does but you. That’s all yours, just like what happened to me is all mine. But I know what it feels like to try so hard to keep it together when you’re really falling apart.”

My eyes fill with tears again.

“I don’t want to fall apart,” I whisper, because this is my greatest fear and saying it any louder is tempting fate.

“Then don’t.” He squeezes my hand. “Fight it. Don’t stop fighting it. You can make it through, Sian. You’re strong enough. You’ve come this far.”

“I feel like I’m drowning in it,” I half-gasp, half-sob, because I’ve never said that aloud before either.

“In what?”

“The sadness.”

It’s more than the sadness, it’s the fear, the grief, the shame, the anger, the longing for what I had and what I’ll never have again. It’s more than any of those things, but one word is all I can manage.

“There’s a trick to it,” he says, reaching over to drape his arm around my shoulders.

I fall sideways, leaning into him.

“To feeling the sadness, but not letting it suffocate you.”

“What is it?” I mumble, only half-listening as I draw in the warmth of his body.

“I have no idea. Time, I guess. Determination maybe. Willpower. Recognising the fact that your life is different now, and embracing what you have. You don’t have to forget them, Sian. Just let them go. It’s not the same thing.”

I know that’s my problem as the words linger in the air around us. I don’t want to let them go. Not yet. What scares me most is what if the memories I have of them are taken from me before I’m ready? What will I be left with?

“I left the potatoes in the fire,” he says, squeezing my shoulder. “They should nearly be done. Come back with me, have something to eat. You’ll feel better.”

I nod into his shoulder, because suddenly the last thing I want is to be sitting in this wardrobe in the dark, waiting.

We climb out of the wardrobe together, and he helps me up. I’m surprised to see that Geezer has followed us, standing guard at my bedroom door. I fondle his head as we pass, and wash my face in the bathroom before we head back to Luke’s.

We don’t talk on the way over, but he lets me help him wrap sweetcorn in foil and place it in the fire, and pours me another mug of wine. We watch the flames as the steak cooks on the cast-iron grill, and then I help him dish everything up. We sit on the grass, eating off our laps. The mood is sombre, but not awkward, and I’m grateful for that. He doesn’t try to make small-talk and I’m incapable of it. I think that’s what I like the most about him. He reads me. He knows when I need the silence. It’s like being alone, only with company. The silence is the same, but the fact that I’m not by myself makes it bearable, even comfortable.

The sun is low now, sitting just on the hills opposite us. It’s always fascinated me, how it seems to defy gravity. Sometimes it looks like it’s falling from the sky, sometimes it looks like the ground is rising up to meet it. Luke feeds some of his steak to Geezer, who takes it delicately, then swallows it without chewing. The day should be cooling off a bit now, but the fire throws out a lot of heat, and I find myself kicking my shoes off and burying my toes in the cool grass.

“Do you swim?” he asks.

I turn to him, and he’s watching me as he rubs Geezer’s belly.

“Sometimes. Doggy-paddle mostly. You?”

“I practically grew up in the water. Lake Lure, near where I’m from, was right on my doorstep as a kid. My Mom used to joke that I was born with gills.”

I smile, because he seems content. I wonder what he was like as a kid, whether he was this intense, or if it was the military and what happened to him that made him this way. Sometimes I can see glimpses of a more mischievous nature beneath the serious façade, and it makes me curious.

“How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” I say.

He lifts an eyebrow at me, that crooked smile playing on his lips.

“Wow, that kinda came out of the blue,” he says. “I’m thirty-one. I’m not going to ask how old you are, because I was always taught you never ask a lady her age.”

I laugh at that, because I haven’t actually felt like a lady in a really long time. Plus, that sounds like something Grandad would say.

“I’m twenty-seven,” I say, picking at the leftover corn on my plate.

I thought he’d make some comment, but he doesn’t. I look up, and he’s just watching me with this look on his face that I can’t quite decipher.

“What?” I ask, too curious to let it lie.

He shakes his head, feeding another piece of steak to Geezer. Apparently neither of us was particularly hungry tonight, although the food was really good. An appetite isn’t something I have a lot of these days.

“Do I look older?” I ask, trying to make a joke of it.

It’s true, I probably do look older. Grief can do that to a person, age them, slingshot them forward in years. It’s the learning, the wisdom that comes with losing people you love. It’s the kind of wisdom I wish I didn’t have, but I don’t really care if I’ve got more crow’s feet, or am much paler than is natural even for a redhead. I have no control over how my body converts my grief into the physical. I don’t even care that it does.

“No, it’s not that,” he says gently, swapping his attention from Geezer to me. “I was just thinking how young you are to have been through what you have.”

I don’t have a response for that. I didn’t plan on being a widow at twenty-five. No one does. I can feel myself getting pulled into the myriad of what-ifs that plagued me for months after I woke up, and I fight it. I don’t want to think about that now.

“How old were you, when you had your accident?” I ask instead.

“Twenty-six.”

“A year younger than I am now.”

“It’s different,” he says, turning his attention back to Geezer.

“How?”

“I was fighting for my country. I signed up. I knew the risks.”

“Did you?”

“Of course I did. We all did.”

“Was it worth it?”

He looks at me, and I suddenly want to take it back. His eyes are steely blue, like icy granite.

“What are you asking me, exactly? If I’d do it again, knowing what I know now? If that’s what you’re asking me, the answer is yes. I would.”

I’m afraid to look away, but then, just as quickly, he changes. The ice melts, the granite crumbles.

“War is hell. That’s not just a cliché, by the way – it’s real. I lost a lot of good friends and I’ve got more who put themselves in harm’s way every day. Death changes you, I don’t have to explain that to you. It doesn’t hurt any less just because it happened in combat.”

“I’m not suggesting it does,” I say quietly.

I don’t mean to insult him. I just want to know if losing friends the way he did hurts any less than what happened to me because the cause was something he believed in. I didn’t believe in any cause, and losing James and Kieran has no upside for me. There is no silver lining. I can’t hold up my beliefs and say ‘this is why it’s all worthwhile’. I wish I could. I wish I could find the reason, understand why it happened and what I’m supposed to learn from it.

He stands and picks up a nearby bucket, throwing water over the fire. It hisses and crackles, the acrid smoke acting like a punctuation mark.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, standing there, staring at the fire as it takes its final, gasping breaths. “I didn’t mean to come on so strong.”

I pull my knees up, hugging them. He doesn’t move. I wonder what he sees, when he looks at the glowing coals. Does he still feel the heat from the desert that day?

“It’s okay.”

He looks over at me as if he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. Instead, he comes over and sits down beside me. We both look into the fire as if it’s going to provide us with answers of some kind. Instead, all I can see are questions.

“Do you ever wonder why you were spared and they weren’t?” I ask.